He Said, She Said, Vista Style

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So like Bill and Jim were emailing each other and Jim was all like “I got a new girlfriend,” and Bill is all like “No you didn’t.” And Jim was like “Yeah, it’s OS X. We were at a party and she was all over me.” And Bill is like “Listen, this is 2004 and Windows is stagnant. It’s understandable you’re looking around for something more interesting.” And Jim is all like “Nuh-uh.” And Bill is like “Whatever.”

See, Microsoft and Jim were angry at each other and Jim was telling:

… Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and company co-founder Bill Gates that the software vendor had “lost sight” of customers’ needs and said he would buy a Mac if he wasn’t working for Microsoft.

“In my view, we lost our way,” Allchin, the co-president of Microsoft’s platform and services division, wrote in an e-mail dated Jan. 7, 2004. The e-mail was presented as evidence late last week in the Iowa antitrust trial, Comes v. Microsoft Corp.

This email is nearly 3 years old, and I was being purposefully dramatic in order to drive home a point. The point being that we needed to change and change quickly. We did: We changed dramatically the development process that was being used and we reset the Windows Vista development project in mid-2004, essentially starting over.